


i've always been more comfortable in chaos

by attackeyebrows



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Making Up, Romance, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-03
Updated: 2015-08-03
Packaged: 2018-04-12 20:24:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4493481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/attackeyebrows/pseuds/attackeyebrows
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When The Doctor takes Clara to the wrong place yet again, Clara decides that she's had enough. But when The Doctor doesn't return, she fears the worst has happened to him, leaving her to dwell about his condition and all the things that she's never said.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i've always been more comfortable in chaos

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first piece of work that I've published, any Kudos or comments will be gladly appreciated. I hope that I haven't done too badly! This is dedicated to Hannah and Belle who put up with me crying about this over the past couple of days, and agreed to beta what I wrote.
> 
> Title from St Jude by Florence and The Machine

It had been minutes since the TARDIS had firmly closed its doors on Clara. It could easily have been hours, or even days for all she knew, it was hard to keep a concept of time when stuck in a time machine.

***

They had found themselves running through a cramped corridor, almost daring to run hand in hand. Shots from oncoming blasters grazed over the tops of their heads, leaving a burning aroma wherever they passed.

Clara had dressed ready for a trip to New York; her silver flapper dress cut just above the knee, glistening under the lights, with impressive heels to match. She had certainly not come prepared for The Doctor to land them on a spaceship in the 41st century, with rubber-like aliens shooting at them from every known direction. 

The Doctor pushed open a door suddenly, yanking Clara inside with more force than she anticipated, activating the deadlock behind them with the sonic. The second he turned around to face her and explain the next step of his plan, she pushed both of her hands hard onto his chest.

"Ow!" He held his arms up to cover himself from another attack, annoyance creeping up on his face. "What the Hell was that for?"

"Doctor! You promised me that you'd take me to New York, not into the middle of an intergalactic war zone!" She huffed, placing her hands firmly on her hips and looking at him sternly.

"Well, it might have been a slip of the tongue. You see, I had initially planned to..."

"No, Doctor, this was not a "slip of the tongue"." She moved her foot forward, gaining ground on him as anger boiled up inside her. "You were never even going to take me to New York, were you? I'm getting fed up of you lying to me again and again!" She drew a sharp intake of breath. "Why can't you just take me where I want to go for once? Is it really that hard?"

"My ship. My rules." He spat at her over the demanding crashes on the other side of the door. "If you don't like it then go home. Go and spend the rest of your small, pathetic human life with your boyfriend for all I care." 

It was then when she slapped him hard on the cheek, stepping away from him as he fell backwards, trying to regain his composure. Her breath was shaky; she was exhausted of even trying with this Doctor and seemingly getting nowhere at all.

"You know what? I might just do that." She turned away from him quickly, striding to the other end of the room where she had spotted an elevator tucked into the corner. She didn't even bother looking round to see his face.

"Clara? Where are you going?" He asked, and she let out a laugh at the confusion that was laced in his voice. As if he didn't know what he had just said.

As she stepped in the elevator, she pressed a button that she could only assume sent her upwards, turning around to give him one last look before disappearing.

"Home."

The doors swiftly came to a close. As the gap had got narrower she saw the first few glimpses of gun fire and the door falling to shreds. She had almost felt sorry for him.

***

That was the last she had seen of him. From outside the TARDIS doors, she couldn't hear the familiar ring of gun shots anymore, or the loud groaning of the spaceship's vents. All she heard was silence, and it had been this way for a while, unsettling her.

"What if he's dead?" She wondered out loud, pacing up and down the console room with a sense of anxiety. "But he can't be dead, can he? Surely he'd just regenerate if he got hurt that bad, wouldn't he?"

The ship simply wheezed in response.

"Fat lot of good you are." Clara stormed to the other side of the dashboard, slamming a hand into the side of the monitor trying to get it to work. The screen had turned off when the fight started to get more intense, leaving her no way of knowing what condition The Doctor was in.

Whilst she had been mad at him, almost unbelievably cross, she couldn't stop the panic setting in when he didn't come back through the doors when she expected him to. When she left him, she hadn't left with the intention of him getting killed.

All she could do was wait. With every passing second she feared that the worst possibility had come true, every tick of her watch becoming almost deafening to listen to.

She strode over to the doors, tired of waiting for him to return, and pushed with all the force that she could build up in her state. The door didn't even creak. She barged into it with her shoulder, but when it shows no signs of movement, she slumped against it.

"Why can't you just let me help him?" She shouted, seemingly yelling to thin air, letting the first tears of despair roll down her cheeks. She smashed her palm into the frame to relieve some of the frustration that tensed up her muscles.

The faint sound of clicking rang in her ears and her eyes widened. In front of her, the lock was turning open, the TARDIS finally willing to listen to her and let her out. She wiped away her tears, whispering under her breath for the ship to hurry up and preparing herself for the state in which she might find her best friend behind the door.

As she reached out for the handle, it swung open into her face, almost knocking her onto the floor. The Doctor fell through the door, slamming it shut behind him and leaning up against it for support. Clara let out a loud sigh of relief that echoed through the console room.

“You’re alive?!" Without a second of hesitation she flung her arms around his neck and squeezed him tight, burying her nose into his tatty coated shoulder. She felt his own arms slink around her back to embrace her.

"More or less." He winced, scrunching up his face as he let Clara go, stretching out a kink in his lower back.

"I should never have said what I said. I was seriously out of line." The words rushed out of her mouth at a lightening pace, needing to clear the air before they got busy with conversation.

She settled herself back down onto her feet, her hand moving from his neck over to his ear. She tucked a stray, damp curl behind its rim and stroked at it gently. "I'm sorry, Doctor."

His eyes couldn't quite meet hers, the cuts on his cheeks and forehead seemingly screaming at her.

"I really don't think it should be you apologising." That's when he looked at her properly, with fierce intensity, but with a level of sincerity that appeared to flow out of his eyes. He had never been good at apologies, but his eyes always said what his mouth couldn't.

She held onto his lapels, cracking a small smile over the fact that he was still here, that her worst fears hadn't come true. As she tugged on them, her eyes caught glimpse of the stain growing on his shirt.

"You're bleeding." She ran her hand under his jacket, pressing her palm gently over the area where blood was starting to soak through. He darted a hand quickly through his hair, damp with sweat and now flecked with the same shade of red, chewing on his bottom lip.

"Most of it isn't my blood. It got very messy very quickly, nothing I couldn't handle mind you, but it just took quite a bit of" He hissed as Clara applied slightly more pressure to his wound. "time."

She looked up at him, eyes carefully locked onto his with her hand brushing up and down his side. It seemed like his gaze could see right through to the back of her skull, could see all her thoughts and her mind's cogs in motion. She opened her mouth slightly, her tongue wetting her lips before she closed them again.

"What is it?" He broke the silence cautiously, with a look of uncertainty on his face.

"Nothing it's just..." She toyed with his lapel again, running her thumb and finger down the hem as a mindless distraction. "You took so long that I was convinced that I'd lost you."

"You thought I was dead?" He sighed, giving her a comforting smile. "Clara Oswald, it's going to take far more than a few angry men for you to lose me."

He was the first to avert his gaze, looking over to the console as his thoughts wandered away with him. He smirked, puffing out his chest slightly.

"Did I ever tell you about that time where I defeated a whole arm-"

Clara cut him off in between words, pushing herself onto tiptoes with a slight pull of his jacket, and kissed him desperately on the mouth. One hand moved to the back of his neck to pull him down further, toying with the sparse hairs that curled at the back of his head.

She had wanted to do this for ages. Every time she looked at him she thought about what their friendship could be, how it could blossom into something much more if he just let himself be free with her. Here she had her chance to change things, and with him so close to dying, she couldn't miss this opportunity again.

However, she noticed that The Doctor wasn't reacting in the same way, his body tense and non-responsive. She pulled away from him slightly and opened her eyes, only to see him staring straight back, pupils dilated from shock. His arms lay by his sides, hands closed up into fists to help him keep a sense of control.

She backed away from him, head falling to the floor with her brown waves covering her eyes and the slight blush from embarrassment that coated her cheeks. She inhaled sharply, putting on a brave face and looked at him again. His expression hadn't changed.

"Oh my, God." She stared at him, registering how he didn't even blink. "I am really sorry, just..." Her words came out more shaken than she would have liked them to. "Just forget that ever happened." 

Surely he could see the redness that was steadily growing from the top of her chest all the way up her neck. Her ears burned, an awful ringing sound trapped inside them as her brain tried to quickly compute her next move.

He provided no reply, just chilling silence. She sighed, letting her hair fall over her face once more. She turned to walk away, to hide until she felt confident to come out again and face him with whatever dignity she had left. As she started to walk away, she felt a hand clasp tightly around her wrist, dragging her back and spinning her around.

He steadied her by clasping her shoulders, tipping up her chin so that she could look at him. He cupped her cheeks in both hands and pulled her up towards him, kissing her hard with a sense of need and desire, brushing away stray tears from under her eyes. She squeaked in surprise, but let her hands fall onto his narrow hips for support, pressing her body into him and backing him up against the doors gently.

His tongue pressed against her lips, heavy with intimate urgency. Before she had even fully accepted his proposal, his tongue passed through her lips and played with her own; applying pressure in just the right places.

She broke away from the kiss slightly, much to mutual dismay. "Now that, Doctor, is what we call a slip of the tongue."

He chuckled, nuzzling their noses slightly before resuming the kiss. His hands came to claw softly at the fabric at her waist, firmly holding her as she jumped off the ground, wrapping her legs securely around his middle. 

Her tongue brushed over his bottom lip, tasting the blood from the cut that had scarred him. It had tasted of iron, and something not all that familiar, pulling at the cut delicately with her teeth. He moaned into her mouth with a weird mixture of pain and pleasure, but utterly enjoyable.

As she tangled her fingers into his hair, she can't stop herself from smiling, releasing a quiet laugh in between kisses.

"What?" He moans, panting slightly from the lack of oxygen. "Why are you laughing? Did I do something wrong?"

His eyes are big and questioning, pink flushing his cheeks as his eyebrows knit together in confusion.

"No, stupid." She chuckled, dipping her head to kiss up his jawline. "You've done something very, very right."

She reached his ear lobe and nibbled it slightly, not too much to hurt but enough to drag a heavy sigh out of him. As she moved down his neck to where his pulse throbbed under his skin, she undid the first buttons of his shirt, rubbing away spots of dried blood that had pooled in his collar bone.

"Well, in that case then" He squeezed her thighs and hoisted her up further, so they were face to face again. "I think I better change out of these clothes, don't you?"

His fingers dipped under the hem of her dress, brushing against the top of her thigh and making her shiver with anticipation. 

She hummed out of delight, as she fiddled with the next button on his shirt, pushing his jacket back slightly off his shoulders. "Mind if I help you?"

"Not at all." He smirked at her, teeth gleaming in the dimmed lights of the control room, before kissing her deeply again, enough to make her fingernails dig into the back of his scalp.

He began to push away from the door with a thrust of his hips against hers, drawing a gasp from her in between breaths. As she moved her head to place small kisses against his cheekbone, she whispered into his ear.

"I'm never letting you out of my sight again."


End file.
